If you love ancient history and want to know Cleopatra outside the stereotypes, give this one a try. Schiff fills in the other details and uses her woman’s viewpoint to offer a new angle. Perhaps, that’s why she’s always cast as a seductress.

They certainly have a patriarchal perspective. It’s a shame that most of what we know about Cleopatra and her reign comes from the pens of men. It rounds out the story, but also left me feeling that I didn’t learn as much about Egypt’s culture and traditions as I wanted. As the various campaigns occur, Schiff also includes details of other regions. Just know that there are battles, politics, and three men at the center of the story.Īnother significant piece of the puzzle is the time Cleopatra spent in Rome, while involved with Caesar.

But if female monarchs fascinate you, then don’t skip learning about Cleopatra. Which is my nice way of saying I thought it was boring. Schiff’s writing was more like college history textbook and less like narrative nonfiction. I wanted to enjoy this book considerably more than I did. But she did have times of immeasurable wealth and success. And adding love and children into the mix only complicated things. No matter whose army she backed, the risks were substantial. Still she lived, as Schiff says, “…at one of the most dangerous intersections in history: that of women and power.” Therefore, she was very much damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t. As much as one third of Ptolemaic Egypt may have been in female hands.”Īnd of course, Cleopatra had privilege that other women did not. “As wives, widows, or divorcées, they owned vineyards, wineries, papyrus marshes, ships, perfume businesses, milling equipment, slaves, homes, camels. For example, Egyptians were relatively feminist about their attitude towards women. So here Schiff has material to work with. On the other hand, we know a fair amount about Alexandria and Egypt in Cleopatra’s time. But it’s hard to feel absorbed in a female figure’s life when most of the information is about the men around her. I commend an author who can eke out 300 pages in this manner. So what Schiff does is build pillars of the men’s lives and then string a few lights between them, which represent what little we know, guess, or assume about Cleopatra. This isn’t entirely the author’s fault, since the primary sources with the queen’s history have been mostly destroyed. In order to tell Cleopatra’s life, Schiff really tells the stories of Caesar and Mark Antony. And, believe me, those details hide among gobs of information about the men she loved. Stacy Schiff looks for hidden details about the world’s most famous female monarch in Cleopatra: A Life.

Cleopatra stacy schiff review